A TIME OF RETURNING
A. A. Bellamy
Ruth 1: 6, 7, 22; Jeremiah 50: 1–5; 2 Kings 8: 1–6
These scriptures bring before us persons who returned. We have seen many depart, even disciples, as in John 6. They are said to be disciples of Jesus, who went away. The Lord was affected by their going away and showed His concern for the apostles. At that point He said, “Will ye also go away?”. It is a time of returning. The Lord healed ten lepers, but only one returned, of whom
He said, “There have not been found to return and give glory to God save this stranger”, Luke 17: 18. Persons who return value their own blessing, but there is something more than our own blessing. We would surely desire to be among those who return to give glory to God.
In His ways with us God brings about conditions which may awaken our consciences. It is all of His grace if He does that. He may cause report to reach our ears. Evidently it was so with Naomi. It says that, “she had heard in the fields of Moab how that Jehovah had visited his people to give them bread”. Dear brethren, we are in such a time as that. God is visiting His people to give them bread. None of us can live without bread. The Lord Jesus is the bread of God (John 6: 33). There is no better food upon which to feed and I believe that God would make His people aware everywhere, not only that He has visited them, but that it is in order to give them bread. Well, this brought about a change in these women, desolate though they were. It says of Naomi that “she arose, she and her daughters-in-law, and returned from the fields of Moab”. It is a great thing to reach that point in our exercises. The younger son in Luke 15 made a spiritual resolution, “I will rise up and go to my father”, Luke 15: 18. No transport was provided for him; it was his own exercise to return. I wonder if such an exercise is to be found in all our hearts. Another prophet says, “If ye will inquire, inquire; return, come”, Isaiah 21: 12.
Well, they began to return. Three of them began, and two of them finished. Things test you immediately you are set to return. You will find that nature’s claims will test you. Orpah fell a prey to nature’s claims. She went back to her
people and to her gods. What is natural is sometimes very close to what is idolatrous and, alas, Orpah went back to both. But Naomi and Ruth returned. Naomi says, “Jehovah has brought me home again empty” (Ruth 1: 21). That is a beautiful expression, “brought me home again”. Of course we have to understand that spiritually, what home is. The disciples of John who followed Jesus asked, “Rabbi … where abidest thou? He says to them, Come and see. They went therefore, and saw where he abode; and they abode with him that day. It was about the tenth hour”, John 1: 38, 39. It is a wonderful thing to find the Lord has a home, not only in heaven, but here upon earth. Every true believer has to find that he cannot be satisfied until he finds where Jesus dwells in what we may speak of as His home conditions.
The second passage we read again speaks of returning persons. “The children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together”. It is a wonderful thing to come into the stream of returning persons. Does any one of us think we have never strayed? “For ye were going astray as sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls”, 1 Peter 2: 25. It is time we all returned. Now the prophet says that this return takes place “In those days”. The preceding verses show that those were the days in which God was breaking down the power of Babylon, as in the present day also He is breaking down the power of Babylon. Where is He doing that? He is doing it in the souls of His people. If His people are in Babylon His word for them is, “Come out of her, my people, that ye have not fellowship in her sins”, Revelation 18: 4. Returning persons are well aware that the judgment of God is about to fall upon this modern Babylon.
“Her sins”, the scripture says, “have been heaped on one another up to the heaven”, Revelation 18: 5. Understand, these are not your sins or my sins. The Lord says to one woman, “Thy sins are forgiven”, Luke 7: 48. Maybe every person here knows that his or her sins are forgiven; but here the Spirit of God speaks of Babylon’s sins which “have been heaped on one another up to the heaven”. So He says, “Come out of her”, out of that idolatrous system where the ruling word is luxury. How it describes the materialism of the present time! Light from God will cause you to arrive at a judgment of it so that as to Babylon the word is, “God has judged your judgment upon her”, Revelation 18: 20. God will deal with Babylon, but we are to come out of her. Many attractive things, music and art, luxury, all these things, go to make up Babylon. She lives luxuriously. God says, “Come out of her, my people”.
You may say, ‘Where am I to come?’. Well now, look at these people. “They shall inquire concerning Zion, with their faces thitherward”. Zion is David’s city, where he had a stronghold, and where he lived. We come again to the thought of a home, and that Christ has conditions in which He dwells. He dwells in the hearts of those who love Him, who love Him “more than these”, John 21: 15. At the end of John’s gospel the Lord’s question to Peter was, “Lovest thou me more than these?”. Now that word “these” can mean things as well as persons. Peter thought he loved the Lord more than the other disciples and he had to find that the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. We, too, have to find that the flesh is weak. Not only is it wilful, but it is weak. The Lord says, ‘Do you love Me more than these?’—these things—this hobby, or that pastime that you would like to follow. These are challenging matters, are they
not? We should love Christ more than anyone, and more than anything else. We should love Him most.
Now, these returning persons are like that; they are inquiring concerning Zion. A christian said to me recently, ‘Do you think there is a collective position now?’. ‘Oh, yes’, I replied, ‘I am sure there is’. It is a wonderful thing that it is so. It is not the Lord’s thought that we should be stranded as individualists. These returning persons are returning together, inquiring concerning Zion with their faces thitherward. Which way are you looking? Lot’s wife looked back. Persons who look back finally go back. The thing is to inquire concerning Zion and have your face thitherward.
Jesus drew near to two in Luke 24 who were going away. He made their heart burn within them and they returned to Jerusalem the same hour—no hesitation, no delay. What did they find? The eleven gathered together; a company with the greatest light on earth at that time saying, “The Lord is indeed risen and has appeared to Simon”, Luke 24: 34. Think of coming into a company as returning persons and finding that! Now this involves determination and committal. These returning persons are saying something, “Come, and let us join ourselves to Jehovah”. That is the whole point. Your link with Christ is to be renewed from your side. “He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit”, 1 Corinthians 6: 17. Some are concerned as to which company they should join. “Let us join ourselves to Jehovah, in an everlasting covenant that shall not be forgotten”. That is committal, and a necessary thing on the part of every returning person.
Now just a word about this woman in Kings.
God in His ways had caused a famine to come, and such experiences come into the lives of most of us. There is an element in this woman of obedience, although the ways of God with her might seem to be adverse. She was to go and dwell in the land of the Philistines for seven years. At the end of seven years the woman returned and cried to the king for her house and for her land. Every believer has a right to share the portion of the saints in light. The inheritance belongs to them. This woman was concerned about her inheritance. The king and Gehazi were just occupied in anecdotes, certain things that are reported. We hear—and thank God for them!—reports of persons being recovered, of sons being restored to life. Gehazi and the king were speaking in an academic way about these things when suddenly the woman and her son appeared. There was the evidence substantially in living persons, one restored to life, the other returning to take up her inheritance.
Then the word in regard of the woman was, “Restore all that was hers”. What grace! What time has been wasted, dear brethren, in what is trivial. Let us waste no more time. The greatest things are within our reach on the principle of desire, and Christ died and the Holy Spirit has been given that we might come into possession of them. It says that the woman cried unto the king for her house and for her land. We need to be strengthened in depth of desire and exercise to come into possession of what we are entitled to. Title is one thing; to take possession of what is yours in title is another. “Restore all that was hers, and all the revenue of the land since the day that she left the country even until now”—the capital and the interest. She is thus no longer at a disadvantage: with her house and with her land she can serve God. Lydia said, “If ye have
judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house” (Acts 16: 15), and then, as in Martha’s house, there would be the service of God.
These are great things, dear brethren, which are open to returning persons, and what I plead for is more exercise, more concern, that we should retrace our steps, not to take up any mere religious position, for God says through His prophet, “If thou wilt return ... return unto me”, Jeremiah 4: 1. It is to that living link and the enjoyment of it that the return is to be, that we should join ourselves to Him in an everlasting covenant, for “he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit”. May it be so for His name’s sake.
Address at Gothenburg, Sweden
28 June 1975